Maryland’s Office of the Public Defender has 627 attorneys on staff, but the agency says it needs well over 1,000 to keep up with the state’s criminal caseload. State Public Defender Natasha Dartigue says the gap has grown serious enough that, without her office, “the entire system would come to a halt.”
Dartigue made the comments in an interview with reporter Lianna Golden in her Baltimore office, as reported by WJLA. Beyond attorneys, she said the office also needs more secretaries, paralegals, social workers and investigators to keep cases moving. According to Capital Gazette, the Office of the Public Defender handles more than 80% of criminal cases statewide, with private firms taking on less than 20% — even though those firms, per Dartigue, pay significantly more than OPD can offer.
A Shortage Rooted in the 1970s, Now at a Breaking Point
The staffing crunch isn’t new. Dartigue has said the shortage has existed since the mid-1970s. She has described it as having reached a breaking point, Capital News Service reports. Statewide, OPD’s overall workload climbed from 85,000 cases in fiscal 2023 to more than 100,000 in fiscal 2025, a jump detailed by Maryland Matters.
New case filings alone rose from 108,000 in fiscal 2023 to 110,400 in fiscal 2024, according to The Daily Record. Juvenile cases jumped even faster, increasing more than 30% — from 2,818 in fiscal 2023 to 3,736 in fiscal 2024 — the outlet reports, adding that the office’s responsibilities have expanded in part because of what Dartigue calls “unfunded mandates.”
Public Defenders Juggling Two to Three Times Recommended Caseloads
Dartigue has said Maryland public defenders are shouldering two to three times the recommended number of cases, according to Capital News Service. That outlet also reports the office’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget funded approximately 1,093 positions overall. A separate workload study based on RAND Corporation methodology called for growing the number of lawyers from about 550 to just under 1,600, per the same Daily Record report — a benchmark far above the 627 attorneys currently on staff.
The strain extends to juvenile court, where Maryland Matters reports the number of youths automatically sent to adult court rose from 618 in fiscal 2024 to 798 in fiscal 2025. That outlet also notes OPD is conducting a new workload study with the RAND Corporation that will assess the number of cases and hours spent on juvenile matters. Dartigue has separately said the office needs 550 additional attorneys and 240 administrative positions to meet demand.
Staffing Gaps Vary Sharply by County
The shortage isn’t evenly spread across Maryland. The Prince George’s County public defender district has 62 attorneys, while Montgomery County has only 38, according to Capital Gazette — together accounting for a small share of the statewide public defender pool. Dartigue has said OPD’s best attorneys are frequently recruited away by agencies and entities the office cannot financially compete with, a dynamic WJLA’s reporting also describes.
Prosecutors’ offices report their own, smaller vacancy gaps. The Prince George’s County State’s Attorney’s Office has 229 authorized positions with 31 vacancies, an approximately 13.5% vacancy rate, spokesperson Tara Jackson said, as reported by Fox Baltimore. Of 99 authorized assistant state’s attorney positions, 80 are currently filled, and of 21 victim/witness coordinator positions, 19 are filled, Jackson said, adding the office continues actively recruiting qualified prosecutors to fill its vacancies.
Montgomery County Attributes Vacancies to Judicial Appointments
In Montgomery County, the picture is different. The county’s State’s Attorney’s Office has approximately 85 attorneys with just two open positions, spokesperson Lauren DeMarco said, per the same Fox Baltimore report. Those vacancies opened after Governor Moore appointed two of the office’s assistant state’s attorneys as judges to the circuit and district court benches. DeMarco said the office is interviewing multiple candidates and anticipates filling the openings in the near future.
Dartigue Links Staffing to Public Safety and Taxpayer Costs
Dartigue has framed the shortage as more than an internal personnel problem. She has said a strong public defense is critical to public safety and increases the likelihood that legal process and constitutional safeguards are maintained, arguing that public defense work supports due process even as it exposes attorneys to secondary trauma from serving clients who have experienced trauma themselves. “Passion alone does not, in fact, pay your bills,” she has said.
She has also tied the staffing level directly to victims and taxpayers, saying that full staffing helps victims seek closure and finality more quickly. Dartigue has said millions of dollars have been spent compensating people for wrongful convictions — money, she argues, that could have instead been invested in the public defender system. Whatever the eventual fix, Dartigue’s central warning remains blunt: without a properly staffed Office of the Public Defender, she says, the entire system would come to a halt.
